LWRS June 2020 Volume 1, Issue 1

Aydé Enríquez-Loya
text. Lastly, I will put theory into practice by building a story that showcases how the
rhetorics of translation can be used to tease out a decolonial story and in that expose
the dangers of mis/translations. This final section will present a close rhetorical and
translational analysis of a few selected poems from Crónica de mis años peores.
Third Space Politics of Rhetorics and Poetics
The understanding and denial of a relationship between a translator and a text creates
a situation where the actual text and the translation of it can be two separate and highly
divergent narratives. While they are both attempting to tell the same story, the
translation of a text carries an imposed meaning dependent on the translators’ personal
ideologies and theoretical understandings of the text. For example, as a graduate
student, I first encountered Tino Villanueva’s poem “Haciendo Apenas La
Recolección” in the anthology Literature and the Environment edited by Lorraine
Anderson, Scott P. Slovic, & John P. O’Grady (1999). Immediately, I was struck by
the editors’ loose translation of the title and synopsis provided in the introduction to
the poem. “Haciendo Apenas la Recolección” originally from Villanueva’s poetry
collection Shaking Off the Dark (1984/1998) is translated by the editors as “Barely
Remembering” (Anderson, Slovic, & O’Grady, 1999, p. 219) The editors’ translation
of the title suggests the grasping of threads of memory, a faint remembrance that needs
more work. The use of “barely” also carries connotations of scarcity and insufficiency,
suggesting that there are only scarce or insufficient memories. But that is not the case.
“Haciendo apenas la recolección” can also be translated as “Barely Making
Recollection” or “Just Now Making Recollection.” 7
The key to understanding the real significance of this title and the poem is by
recognizing the theoretical and cultural discourses Villanueva’s narrative has created.
Alfonso Rodriguez (1998) suggests, “As a former migrant worker, [Villanueva] has
personally experienced the struggle, and he has developed a way to deal with his
attitudes and frustrations through the creative process in the form of poetry of social
commitment” (p. 84). Furthermore, in “Haciendo apenas la recolección,” Villanueva
retraces the routes of his childhood and reality as a migrant worker in Central Texas.
The journey he undertakes in the poem is the recovery of his story—one that provides
a “sense of peace and liberation” through the process of retelling his story (Rodriguez,
1998, p. 85). As such, in either of my suggested translations, the speaker is not grasping
at faint memories but is instead just now initiating the process of recalling these
events. Additionally, there is a significant difference between Recolección and
Recordar, which is the literal translation of “to remember.” Recolección, to recollect,
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